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AmblesideOnline Year 11 Basic Version

Based on AO's Year 11. Detailed weekly schedules for these books are available in various formats:Html List; PDF; modifiable DOC; modifiable ODT

History studied in Year 11: The 20th century
Term 1: 1900-1940, Term 2: 1940-1960, Term 3: 1960-present

As students mature, their reading material will present more challenging content, and may include strong language and more mature themes. We have placed footnotes linked in red beside those books that most parents will consider an issue. However, we cannot anticipate which content might be an issue for every family. We encourage parents to pre-screen material to determine its appropriateness for their child and family. Note: These booklists and curriculum suggestions are incomplete without a thorough understanding of Charlotte Mason's ideas and methods. We cannot emphasize enough that you take time to familiarize yourself with her philosophy by reading her books.

Key: (What do all those symbols mean?)Book titles are linked to Project Gutenberg (which offers free etexts in a variety of formats) or other online text when no Project Gutenberg text is available.
β - manybooks.net, another free ebook site.Δ - free etext at archive.org.K - free Kindle text from amazon.com.($) - hard-copy book purchase from amazon.com.(K) - Kindle purchase from amazon.com.☊ - free audiobook at Lit2GoΩ - free audiobook at Librivox [Audio Note]∩ - other free audiobook source[0] - Click the bracketed numeral to view a note about the book near the bottom of the page.[0] - red footnotes indicate a heads-up for parents about the title. We are unable to foresee every incident that might potentially be an issue to every family, but we have red-flagged those that are commonly a concern.

Asterisks refer to which term the book is used:
* Term 1
** Term 2
*** Term 3

Foreign Language

Begin Latin if you've not started already, or continue with any previous
foreign language studies

Health

Study nutrition
Keep fit: Learn and play a game (kick ball, tennis, croquet, ping-pong, softball, etc.) or folk-dance, or pursue other physical activity of your choice. One option is Swedish Drill Revisited by Dawn Duran $

Life and Work Skills

Work on useful skills such as budgeting, gardening, cooking, car
maintenance, carpentry, etc.

Free Reading

Try to use books that were not included from Year 11 in addition to the Year 11 Free reading List

Footnotes

2. Note on Audiobooks: While links to audio books are added as a courtesy, Miss Mason's approach to grammar and composition is heavily dependent upon the children receiving an immense amount of visual exposure to the written word over many years, so parents should exercise extreme caution in how many audiobooks they use each year. Our brains just work differently when we see the words. (Cindy Rollins did a Circe Mason Jar podcast that included the role of audiobooks with difficult books.) For children who have difficulty reading, one solution is to have them follow the audio version along in a written text. (Back)

4. AO's Bible plan goes through the Bible semi-chronologically over 6 years in Years 6-11. This year's Bible readings would be as follows:

4a. A History of the American People by Paul Johnson:
Term 1 1900-1940 pg 621-725 (104 pgs)
Term 2 1940-1960 pg 725-841 (116 pgs)
Term 3 1960-2000 pg 845-976 (131 pgs)
A weekly schedule for Paul Johnson's History of the American People is here. (Back)

6. Timeline: At this age, students should be keeping a Century Chart and Book of Centuries. Students at this level in the PNEU schools made summaries of dates and events, referred to maps as they read their history, and made century charts. Instructions for making your own timelines and charts are included in these Parents' Review articles: Book of the Centuries; Teaching Chronology; The Correlation of Lessons. For more details about the why, when, how of keeping CM timelines (and other notebooks), we recommend Laurie Bestvater's book, The Living Page ($). (Back)

7. Diary of a Young Girl: We recommend locating an edition published before 1989, as later editions include content that was left out of earlier editions and will need parental screening. If you use a later edition -- The Critical Edition (1989), or The Definitive Edition (1991), or The Revised Critical Edition (2003) -- please pre-read for content. (The mass paperback linked from the AO website $ translated by B. M Mooryart-Doubleday "with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt" should be fine; it's a reprint an earlier edition.) (Back)

8. The World: Travels 1950-2000 - only half of this book is scheduled. There's brief non-graphic mention of the author's gender-change operation in chapter 18, titled "Casablanca." The chapter is very short and can be skipped or removed. Also some language on pg 233 and 242. (Back)

10. A basic government book: High School students will need to earn credit for basic government. This material can be done in Year 9, 10, 11 or 12. Some options:

Foundation for Freedom: A Study of the United States Constitution Workbook by Lars Johnson - This "workbook" is the text with review exercises after each chapter, which can be skipped. ($) Foundation for Freedom is an updated, full-color version of The Story of the Constitution, Second Edition by Sol Bloom and Lars Johnson ($). Both appear to be the same book/workbook, but the newer one is in color. (Sol Bloom's original 1937 Story of the Constitution, which Lars Johnson used as a foundation for his own book, is online at Hathi Trust.) Because it was written in 1937, it stops at the 21st Amendment. Lars Johnson did an excellent expanding and updating the Bloom book by adding concerns that weren't on the radar in 1937. He also wrote a chapter on limited government, checks and balances, and Biblical morality as well as a full-page explanation of each Amendment; Sol Bloom's book just explains each Amendment with a sentence or two. If you are in a situation where you need an online resource, the Sol Bloom text could work, but you should also seek out a source that explains why each Amendment was added and what it does.

Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution is a ten-week online course offered by Hillsdale College with 40-minute streaming video lectures (or you can download the audios). You have to register with a login and password, but the course is free. After you register, "you can find out how to get a copy of Hillsdale's U.S. Constitution Reader, the essential companion to the course, which contains over a hundred primary source documents edited by Hillsdale's Politics faculty." The website says the course begins on Feb 24, but their FAQ says their courses are archived so you can start them at any time, and you can go at your pace.

The Everything American Government Book by Nick Ragone is an easy to read explanation of political terms (such as caucus, filibuster, bureaucracy, regulatory commission, judicial review, pork barrel spending, gerrymandering) with a minimum of bias. The author glosses over the Constitution, giving his interpretation of the key points, so this is not a substitute for learning what's in the U.S. Constitution. If you decide to use this book, a schedule that divides it over either 36 weeks or 18 weeks is here. ($K).

This 10-minute YouTube video presents a clear explanation of the difference between a republic based on law, and a democracy based on majority rule. (Back)

14. Ourselves: approximately 22 pages per term. This book will continue through all the remaining years of AO/HEO curriculum. This is the 4th volume of Mason's 6 Volume Series. This year: pages 68-136 of Book 2
Also available in a modern English paraphrase that can be read online or purchased. (K) The paraphrase of Book 2, Self-Direction, the second half of Volume 4, can be purchased as a separate paperback book.
Term 1: Book 2 pg 68-96
Term 2: Book 2 pg 97-114
Term 3: Book 2 pg 115-136 (Back)

16. Invitation to the Classics: pages 307 to 366 this year, beginning with James Joyce, and continuing to the end of the book; the chapters are short. Table of Contents arranged by Year and Term for both books is available here.(Back)

20. A short anthology of Modern Poetry: some suggestions are Norton's Anthology of Modern Poetry or The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Third Edition, Volume 2: Contemporary Poetry (Back)